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New House Numbers!

Who knew? I mean really, who knew that some very simple things can be so complicated! I suppose I knew - I have a tendency to overthink things sometimes, so I suppose it's not really surprising that I actually spent a considerable amount of time studying up on...are you ready for this? ... HOUSE NUMBERS! Thaaat's right ladies and gentlemen...I....studied....about....house numbers! In this case though, I did happen to find that it's pretty interesting. I Googled it, looked at all kinds of designs, shopped online, considered, reconsidered, decided, changed my mind (a few times), and finally, after long last - made a decision.

So here's where it started...ever since buying 173, the house numbers looked like this:

Of course, all those years I figured they were perfectly fine, but after that big porch redo of 2013, I just couldn't bring myself to put the same numbers up. So I studied. And I started noticing house and building numbers. Then I came across the JPD School of Design website and fell in love with a font called Neutra. And in reading this article, came to understand MUCH more about house numbers than I ever thought I'd care to know.

Back to Neutra...so I fell in love with it, then started shopping for it. Turns out, the least expensive set of number in the Neutra font would have cost about $120...for three digits!! Now, I'm frugal but not cheap, and I'm willing to pay a price for something if it's something I really want, but really? $120 for house numbers? Nope.

Off to Lowes. And to Home Depot. Target, Walmart, Lowes again, another Walmart, and finally back to Home Depot. At Home Depot my eye kept being drawn to:

It's not exactly Neutra, but it had a nice lines and met my other wants: clean font, the nickel look to match the door hardware, 5" numbers and - not plastic! The only problem was that they were designed to be "floating" from the house like this:

It's a nice look and all, but the spot over the door isn't thick enough for the bolts so floating numbers were out of the question. But I really wanted those numbers! So I got them. Once home I did the unthinkable and put them in my drill press and made some holes in the numbers. I dunno...I spent less than $20 and the way I was so nervous about ruining them, you would have thought they were made of gold!

After drilling holes in my brand new numbers, I started overthinking how to put them on the house and have them level and evenly spaced. Keep in mind now that 173 isn't just the name of this blog, it's the house number! THREE digits! And again - I was trying so hard not to make a mistake and end up with some errant screw hole, or uneven and unevenly spaced numbers. Geeze, it's not like I couldn't readjust if needed! And get this - I even watched two Youtube videos! The running theme was to make a template. OK, so I'll make a template...

Good grief! Cardboard, tape, clamps, more tape...it was getting nuts in here! After about 45 minutes (yes, you read that right) I just grabbed the numbers, a level, a screwdriver, some screws and my awl and headed for the front stoop. And yes, I did it with that frustrated harrumph one gets when it dawns that things have gotten crazy out of control complicate for such a simple thing. A couple awl scratches and ten minutes later, 173 had it's new numbers!

Don't panic! In real time the numbers show up really well, it just seems impossible to capture some things with my camera phone. One more shot:

Is there a moral here? Nah...I don't think I'm alone in overthinking and complicating things. At the end of the day- the numbers are up, I learned a few things, and I had fun doing it!

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